Chapter 57 Kali
KALI
An explosion of brightness lit up Eli’s falling jaw.
Blushing, Eislyn untangled her hand from Eli’s to rub the redness away, as though she could wipe off the color like a sponge could de-grease a pan.
Still buried in Zion’s ass, Gedeon unglued himself from his back, rising to his full height, his mouth set in a firm line.
Refusing to move, Zion grinned, calling out a bout of giggles from within me—
Fine, truth be told, I cracked up. My core ached as I squeezed him still lodged in my butt, my chest brushing against his.
I couldn’t see the scene from Eislyn’s and Eli’s point of view, but the picture had to be good: Zion sandwiched between us, my legs wrapped around his midriff and his pants twined around his ankles. Add in Gedeon with his pants unzipped…
No wonder our friends were gawking at us without uttering a single word.
Gedeon fixed me with a glare, but it roused me further, and soon my pants mixed with my cackles. Shaking, Zion smothered his amusement in my neck.
With a sigh, Gedeon straightened. “What is it?” He didn’t ask—he ordered to report.
“I’m not having breakfast at that table again,” Eli blurted out.
“Ever.” He scratched the side of his head, his blond locks shifting around his shoulders.
“You know what—we better never eat here again in general. We can bring the plates to our room. Or to the dining room. Or anywhere where they haven’t—” He paused.
“The dining room is still safe, right? Please tell me it is.”
Zion chuckled against my throat, and shock contorted Eli’s features.
“I think we should give them a minute.” Eislyn blew her chocolate bangs off her forehead, but the strands immediately returned to their original location. “We’ll wait for you outside.”
Taking Eli’s wrist, she dragged the stupefied man out of the kitchen. Once they’d vanished in the hallway, Gedeon pulled out of Zion, and the latter’s groan rippled through me.
“One hour. That’s all I ask for. One hour without someone demanding my attention,” Gedeon grumbled as he zipped up his pants.
“But no.” He secured the button. “First, it’s Jayla demanding her favor for my apparent confetti debt.
Then, it’s these two barging in for gods know what.
” Finished fastening his belt, he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Would it kill someone to give me sixty minutes of peace?”
I rolled my lips. Zion trembled in my arms as he tried and failed to contain his laughter. My own boiled, bubbled, steamed, and my chest verged on shattering—
“Don’t you dare say anything.” Gedeon gave me a death stare. “Go back to our room and wait for me in the shower. Both of you,” he emphasized as he marched out of the kitchen.
I met Zion’s gaze. “He’s so bossy.”
As he rose on his forearms, the twinkle in his expression spoke of peril. “I know how we can rile him up even more.”
“But…” I clutched his waist, his flesh feverish. “He’ll punish us.”
I knew in my bones Gedeon would cast his judgment in the most torturous form possible. Yes, it would definitely be fun, but…
“We shouldn’t push him.” I stroked up and down Zion’s sides. “Not tonight. Yesterday, Conall and Aanya… Then today, his migraine, Ezra, and now whatever reason Eli and Eislyn have come looking for him…it’s too much. He’s going to implode trying to deal with everything.”
A flicker of seriousness made Zion’s grin falter. “I know.” With a grumble, he slipped out of me.
Emptiness raged in me as I watched him struggle to pull his underwear and pants over his knees. Because doing both at the same time evidently made sense to him.
Hopping off the table, I crouched down to help him, the mischievousness in his smile making me lightheaded.
But then a sudden realization cooled me.
The lights were on. Anyone wandering the streets could see into the kitchen. Catch me helping wrangle denim up Zion’s legs. Ogle my bare ass as my t-shirt sat above my hips, exposing my bottom half to any curious passersby.
Awareness drenched me like a torrent of freezing water, and I yanked the fabric down to my upper thighs, covering as much as possible.
At least the t-shirt I’d stolen from Gedeon’s closet was long enough to cover my bottom. Shreds of my panties hung on my waist, the crotch split into two parts.
Rummaging in the ceiling-high cabinets for anything resembling a broom of any kind, I said, “I need to clean the mess in the hallway.” First, I had to get rid of the ceramic shards of what’d been my cup once and then mop up the tea surely turning the hallway into a lake.
“Oh, I agree, we need to clean up.” Strong hands spun me around by my waist. “And we’ll do precisely that.” Zion bent to grip my upper thighs.
“What are you—”
My nose bumped into his back.
“Zion,” I hissed. The bastard had thrown me over his shoulder.
Again.
He seemed to have developed a mania for it. And unfortunately, I was the one on the receiving end.
Sometimes, I wished he was the size of Eislyn. Then I would get a break from being carried like a sack of potatoes.
As he zoomed out of the kitchen, the shapes of our friends and Gedeon blurred past us. Fuming, I tugged the hemline of my t-shirt to maintain a semblance of decency. Our friends didn’t deserve to be flashed.
Despite me begging Zion to put me down, the stubborn ass carried me up the stairs and set me down only after we’d reached the safety of our bathroom.
“Too many clothes,” he groused, and before I could open my mouth, his knife was slicing my clothing. Not that there was much of it to begin with.
Scrambling to undress himself, Zion almost sprawled on the floor, the black veins in the white floor tiles as prominent as the ones bulging in the backs of his hands.
Hoping a shower would conceal my smile, I climbed into the giant bathtub. Zion was truly adorable. A mad sadist losing his balance because of a pair of socks.
As if imbued with nature’s secrets, hot water leached any tension lingering in my body. Sticking my face under the spray, I relished the warmth so easily accessible in the compound.
It still boggled me that cities purposefully flicked the switch on hot water, steering it solely toward the green-banded apartments and depriving the non-fertile folk of such a small pleasure as what I’d learned to be a proper shower.
Joining me, Zion squirted a dollop of shampoo—undoubtedly cherry—onto my hair. “So that’s how it feels.”
It took me a minute to comprehend his remark. Him massaging the suds across my scalp felt divine.
“What do you mean?”
He maneuvered me to stand directly under the spray to rinse my locks. “Gedeon’s cum trickling out of my ass.”
A giggle worked its way out of me. He talked as though his own cum wasn’t swirling around in my butt. “Do you like it?”
“It’s…” he trailed off, reaching for the conditioner.
I squeezed the excess water out of my strands. “You have to get used to it.”
Zion motioned for me to turn around. Any time he’d climb into the shower with me, he’d comb my hair until not a single tangle remained. More than once, it’d brought me to the brink of tears.
He worked the viscous liquid into my locks as gently as a man obsessed with a knife could. “Have to?”
“He won’t stop now that he’s fucked you.” Swatting Zion’s arms away, I exchanged the jar of conditioner for a shampoo bottle. “It’s going to be a regular occurrence now.”
As I rubbed foam all over his head, he muttered, “It better.”
And so, I put extra effort into taking care of him. Granted, nobody had shown me a drop of kindness in Ilasall, so I was mostly mimicking what Zion or Gedeon had done to me or what I’d observed our friends do for each other, but he didn’t complain once.
He never did.
Huddled up in the fluffiest towel in the universe, I wiped the condensation from the mirror above the sink. The bunch of tiny wounds littering my lower face, neck, and above my chest had scabbed and would heal in no time, but the bullet graze distorting Zion’s tattoo…
I frowned at him wrapping a roll of fresh gauze around the injury. With our reserves depleted, we couldn’t waste any meds for non-life-threatening situations, but watching him skip the antiseptic didn’t sit well with me.
Sensing my concern, two pointy ears popped into the bathroom. Shadow’s silent paws carried her across the tiled floor to me, and I picked up the fluff ball to distract myself, scratching between our kitten’s ears. Instantly, her half-closed eyes placated my agitated gut.
But a crinkling of paper drew me out of my untroubled state, and I swiveled to find Zion completely naked. Apparently, towels were too restricting, as he’d once pointed out.
Peering into a brown package sitting on the counter, he chuckled, his shoulders shaking.
Curiosity tended to get the better of me, including in situations like these, and I snatched the bag from him. One peek was enough to determine that something forged out of steel rested at the bottom. One end rounded, the other a flat oval. But the longer I studied it, the less sense it made.
As Zion closed the package, a million creases damaged the paper. “I don’t think we were supposed to find this.”
Stroking Shadow’s back, I asked, “What was that thing inside?”
“It’s for this.” Zion lifted my towel, slapped my ass, hard, and dashed into our bedroom.
While the sting morphed into a burn, I gaped at the doorway. A creak revealed he’d leaped onto the bed—his sanctuary. As if I wasn’t going to smother him with my pillow in his sleep.
But Gedeon had asked for peace. One hour of peace. I could do that. I could patiently wait for Zion to slacken, to venture into the dreamworld, and then use the giant duvet Gedeon had procured from somewhere to close the idiot’s airways.
Rubbing my backside, I resigned to suffering another night of care and intimacy. Because that was what they entailed. Endless caresses, gruff grunts, and a tangle of limbs.
“You will never leave me, right?” I nuzzled Shadow’s head, peppering it with pecks. “You will stay here and be okay.”